How concerned should Notre Dame be with its 2022 kickers?
Notre Dame might not have won 10-plus games for a record fifth straight time in program history if not for kicker Jonathan Doerer. He made a game-winner in the season opener at Florida State and another in the final minute at Virginia Tech.
Two monumental moments, two clutch kicks.
The Irish could have still won both games had Doerer missed, but his cool, calm demeanor and the swing of his leg eliminated all doubt. Now, it’s likely Notre Dame does not have a kicker on its roster who could replicate those instances. And that’s a scary proposition for a first-year head coach who needs every ounce of accuracy from every player across all position groups.
Exquisite blocking up front is going to make life easier on Marcus Freeman. So will pinpoint passing from the quarterback — to the nth degree. Something that also seems to always steer a coach clear of gray hairs and headaches? The ball going through the uprights. That’s something that didn’t happen nearly as much as it should have at Notre Dame Stadium during the Blue-Gold Game April 23.
Sophomore kicker Josh Bryan missed two field goal attempts. Graduate student Blake Grupe, a transfer from Arkansas State, missed one. It was windy, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. Freeman didn’t view it as one. He held those two to a higher standard, saying after the game that the Irish simply need to be better in the kicking game. Full stop.
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If the Blue-Gold Game results were a one-off, then it’d have been fair to overlook the misses. But Freeman said earlier in the spring that the kicking game needed to be better. Bryan and Grupe missed kicks during the practice periods open to the media throughout the spring. This was not an off day. It was the continuation of a trend.
Was Doerer the most accurate kicker? No. He made 75.4 percent of his kicks in three seasons as the Notre Dame starter. He missed five field goals in 2021 alone, but were any of those misses as memorable as the makes against the Seminoles and Hokies? Probably not. Doerer won games for the Irish last season. He never really lost any. There was never a situation in which Doerer was called upon in crunch time and he missed.
Football games span 60 minutes. Even when a kicker misses in the biggest moments, full blame can’t be fully placed on the specialist. It shouldn’t, anyway. So much can go differently leading up to an all-important field goal attempts. But on the flip side, it’s soul-crushing to go through four hours of football and have the fate of an entire team of 100 or so players plus dozens of coaches come down to the leg and foot of one person.
Right now, Notre Dame does not have a kicker it can feel comfortable trotting onto the field for something of that magnitude. And yes, that’s concerning.
